A Life Saved
by Selene Antilles
Summary: A single day River Song had spent in the Library hard drive. *Vague Season 7 Spoilers*


Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who nor am I associated with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston, Stephen Moffat or the BBC.

A/N: Takes place directly following "Forest of the Dead" and is loosely based on some vague spoilers for Season 7 including a new companion and references to the fate of the Ponds

**A Life Saved**

"Sweet dreams, everyone." River smiled softly, her cardigan shimmering in the sudden moonlight as she flipped the switch by the door.

A single day she had spent in the Library hard drive. It wasn't like it had been for Donna, no jumping from moment to moment. Less like being in a dream than being… well, like being in the TARDIS. Time was relative (no pun intended) but days still passed in their way. The sun rose and the moon set.

It was funny: she remembered sacrificing herself, remembered the searing pain of death. Remembered the betrayal and the tears in his oh-so-young eyes. Yet here she was and it seemed she was to live out her virtual days in peace and quiet with the people she had spent her last few hours with.

Except that the world was still wrong.

Peace and quiet for River Song? It was the last thing she could have wanted and she knew he knew it. So why? Why save her? Just for selfish reasons, so he could pop in on his late wife now and then for a quick shag? Could she even shag in a hard drive?

He'd have blushed at that. He did actually.

River shrieked in a rather un-River-like way, clutching a hand to her chest at finding him lounging on her new sofa, beat red at the mumbled comments.

"'Scuse you! Is that what you think of me?" he (her he, that is, not the younger he with the suit) cried indignantly, wiping a bit of custard from his chin with the back of one hand and popping a fish finger in his mouth with the other.

River wrinkled her nose, grabbing the bowl of goup from him and dropping it on the counter. "Don't know how you can eat that stuff; it's disgusting," she huffed, running her fingers through her hair, miraculously untangled (perhaps there were _some _benefits to being trapped in a hard drive; her hair had never been so easy to care for.)

"You can, by the way." He sucked his fingers clean, popping to his feet and pointing the sonic around the room uselessly. "This place really is pretty marvelous. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was solid, not just strings of numbers and bits of wire."

She leaned heavily against the counter, finding herself not really wanting to face him. "Can what?"

"Shag." The Doctor tucked her hair behind her ear, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "What did I do? You're acting more like I forgot an anniversary than saved your life."

"This isn't a life, sweetie. This is you grasping at straws." River shot him a pained look, hurt in her eyes. "I was ready. You should have just let me go. It's not as though you didn't have time to prepare for it. You've always known when it would happen."

"Says the woman who literally collapsed the universe so she wouldn't have to say goodbye to _me_," he grumbled with a roll of his eyes, dipping a finger into the custard and sucking it clean with a petulant sniff.

"So she wouldn't have to _kill _you, not so she wouldn't have to say goodbye," River corrected. "Everybody dies, Doctor."

"What if I told you you and the Bobs and Anita and the children and Miss Evangelista weren't going to be the only ones here for much longer? Aren't there people out there you'd like to see go on living after they've died?" He raised his eyebrows nearly to his hairline.

River started to turn away, started to deny him, but her eyes shot to his face in dismay. "What's happened to them? Mum and Dad, are they okay? I never knew… It was like they'd just been erased from history which… made all too much sense given our family history. No…"

The Doctor pressed his thumb to her lips, bringing her frustrated rambling to a gentle close. "It was the Weeping Angels, sent them back to 1912. Took me nearly a decade to find them. And when I did… they asked me to leave them there. They'd settled in nicely, said they actually liked it. It was nice and _normal_ but not too normal, being that it was still 100 years in their past." He laughed weakly, shaking his head. "Met a girl named Clara, out there in the stars; you'll like her. We'll pop by sometime."

"Doctor." River squeezed his arm, eyes shining. "What happened to them?"

He pursed his lips sourly for a moment before continuing, throwing his arms up. "The Great War broke out! And Rory, Rorificus, Rory the Roman who'd already seen too many battles… He didn't make it home. And Amy, mad little Amelia Pond. She, ah, she died of a broken heart, in an institution."

River pressed a hand over an involuntary "Oh-", her heart clenching and her eyes squeezing shut as he brushed kisses across her forehead.

"I know, darling, I know. But! But it's okay, because today… everybody lives." He grinned one of those manic little grins of his and blinked out, leaving her alone for a few seconds before blinking back in, a bit shaky on his feet.

"All right, let's go find the Ponds, shall we?" He grabbed her hand, pulling her outside into the moonlight to find her parents, a bit older than she had ever seen them but definitely them, standing on the grass looking mighty confused.

"Doctor?" Amy looked down at her hands, eyes narrowed. "Doctor, where in the hell are we?"

River laughed, that happy, twinkling sound she made when he had managed to surprise her despite all the odds. "You're home, Mum."

The Doctor wrapped his arms around Amy and Rory, a giddy sparkle in his eyes. "The Ponds!" Glancing back over his shoulder, he winked at River. "All of them."

She stepped up with a shake of her head, felt him press his lips to hers, felt him cup her cheek in his hand. "Everybody lives," he whispered in her ear and then he was gone but not forever and not without leaving her (2/3 of) all the people she loved in the universe and all the books she could ever want to read.


End file.
